Author Archives: Roma Foundation

News Eastern Europe Poland

Poland: Exhibition

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The District Museum in Nowy Sącz, Poland, is presenting an exhibition consisting of exhibits collected by Paweł Lechowski, an ethnographer who has been continuously interested in Roma culture since the 1960s. Thanks to his collection showcases the life of travelling Roma for those who know travels only from the stories of the older generation.

Croatia News Eastern Europe

Spin the Wheel

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Ri Rock Association in partnership with the Roma Youth Organization of Croatia organised the second cultural and artistic event dedicated to Roma culture and art. The event, called “Spin the Inclusive Wheel” aims to promote Roma culture and identity through music and art.

Radio Roža is an internet radio program that is conducted as part of the Gyroscope culture project.

News Eastern Europe Serbia

Ljiljjana Petrović Butler

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The story of a Serbian Romani singer, Ljiljjana Petrović Butler, born in 2944 in Belgrade, who died in 2010 in the Netherlands, having fled the wars in Yugoslavia.

Unfortunately, this story also reinforces many stereotypes: early marriage and children, no education, dirty, and so on. Sad, as it could have been told differently.

Czech Republic News Eastern Europe

Patrick Banga

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Another article in the press about the Romano journalist Patrick Banga whose first book won the prestigious Czech Magnesia Litera award in the new author category.

It does not please certain people. According to the article, Patrik Banga now reads almost every day that he bribed the entire jury of the Magnesia Litera award. Many people cannot accept the fact that the book award went to Rom.

Bad

Croatia News Eastern Europe

Erdelezi in Croatia

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The Ri Rock Association started the celebration of its eighteen years of activity with Open House Days, which will culminate at the end of the year at the 45th Ri Rock Festival. The association, together with the Roma Youth Organization of Croatia they are organizing the second edition of the cultural and artistic manifestation dedicated to Roma culture and art: “Turning the Inclusive Wheel”. The goal of the event is to promote Roma culture and identity through music and art.

France News Western Europe

French Chronicle …

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Not much about Roma in France this week. Two articles on the judicial system: One  where two Roma who were accused of stealing copper were freed for lack of proof; the other, the case of a child removed from her mother based on a wrong testimony. The usual story about the closure of camps in Bordeaux – they simply pop up again somewhere else. And finally, an intervention in the French senate about the lack of social care for Roma children, and the fact that the Roma population living in camps does not decrease. There are roughly 15’000 of them. Since at least 20 years.

Bulgaria News Eastern Europe

Bulgaria and Roma

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School games under the motto “Sports for everyone” are taking place today at Osogovo Stadium in Kyustendil, Bulgaria. Children from schools that educate children of Roma origin in Kyustendil region, took part in the competitions.

The initiative is carried out under the project “Improving coordination and dialogue between the police and the Roma community”, financed under the program “Home Affairs” of the Norwegian Financial Mechanism, and GDNP is a beneficiary of the project. The project envisages improving coordination and dialogue between the police and the Roma community.

The project envisages the construction of 20 stations or their renovation in ten regional directorates in which there are areas with a compact Roma population. “The police inspector is the closest to the people, and when there are no station desks in the Roma neighbourhoods themselves, it becomes difficult for people to access the law enforcement agencies,” the organizers also pointed out.

News Eastern Europe Slovakia

Slovakia and Roma Education

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Juraj Čokyna left his job at a newspaper five years ago and went to teach children from settlements in eastern Slovakia for two years. He wrote a book about it, called “Where are the edges?”

Three years later, he is interviewed and states that: “The best are those who went abroad. For Slovak Roma, especially when they live in excluded communities, this is the only chance to experience an environment where they have dignity and the necessary support, for example in schools. Abroad is the only chance for them not to immediately hit the glass ceiling, which they will bang their heads against here in Slovakia very soon.”

Sad.

News Eastern Europe Poland Ukraine

The Polish Catholic Church and Roma

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Right after the congress of the International Catholic Committee for Roma in Prague on April 24, Fr. Stanisław Opocki – the national Roma chaplain and a member of the Polish Episcopate Commission for Migrants – went to Lviv to support the emerging Roma pastoral care there. Using Polish experience in this area, he assured that he would support the creation of similar structures and work on the educational needs of the Roma in Ukraine.

Apparently, it is never too late for the church.

News Eastern Europe Ukraine

Ukraine, Youth, and Roma

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At least 35% of young Ukrainian men and women polled by sociologists have prejudices against Roma, and another 28% towards LGBT fellow citizens. These comes out of a study “The impact of war on youth in Ukraine”, which was conducted by the Cedos analytical centre and the Info Sapiens research agency.

Well, even though these number are high, they are lower than a while back.

News Eastern Europe Slovakia

Slovakia and School Segregation

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The new Roma mayor of Žehne, near Prešov, Slovakia, wants to radically solve the discrimination of children in kindergarten.

There are purely Roma children in one class, and their non-Roma classmates attend the other class. Other children from the Roma settlement only go to the community centre in the morning.  “So that the children are mixed up. When we have 14 children here, there will be seven and seven there. Also Roma and non-Roma,” explained the mayor.

Bulgaria News Eastern Europe

I am a Romni

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Dessi, 23, is one of the first Roma teachers in Bulgaria. The teaser of the Deutche Welle interview states that “only about 3 percent Roma in the country have higher education, only 23 percent have secondary education. Added to this is the fact that Roma girls tend to marry off the record very early – a common practice that is illegal but usually tolerated by the state.”

Well, all stereotypes, and total lack of the most basic math skills: They do not know how many Roma there are in the country. So how can they state exact percentages?

Netherlands News Western Europe

Westerbork

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The camp of Westerbork in the Netherlands, a camp from which many Jews and Roma were transferred to death camps, wants to put more emphasis on the victims of the Holocaust. The military tattoo will no longer be blown at the 4 May commemoration in Camp Westerbork this year, instead the bell of camp will be rung before the two minutes of silence.

News Eastern Europe Slovakia

Slovenia and Roma

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The President of the Slovene Republic, Nataša Pirc Musar, recently held a consultation with representatives of the Roma community, which was also attended by the State Secretary from the Prime Minister’s Office, Dr. Anton Grizold. The latter is the head of the working group for dealing with the Roma “issue”, which met for the first time almost half a year ago. At the meeting, Grizold said that the task force will tackle the challenges in a two-pronged manner – with an action plan for the most pressing problems and with systemic solutions.

The area of particular concern is the region of Novo Mesto where the police intervene hundreds of times a year in the Roma settlement Žabjak.

News Eastern Europe Slovakia

Theatre and Teaching

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Jana Pierová, a Romni, founded a theatre club in 2016 after she became a classroom teacher at Podsadok Primary School in Stara Ľubovna, Slovakia.  “I attracted the children to the activity, they were probably oversaturated with dancing and singing. They welcomed it, thanks to the theatre they could express their emotions,” she recalls

“We try to use art to break down prejudices so that the majority perceives us differently,” she explains. Among other things, theatre helps children process difficult topics, such as the Roma Holocaust.

Czech Republic News Eastern Europe

Patrick Banga

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“I am sincere and not politically correct,” says Patrik Banga, author of the autobiographical novel titled Skutečná cesta ven – The real way out. This book, which traces the eventful life of a Roma child and adolescent in the effervescence of the 1990s, won its author the Magnesia litera prize for the first novel.

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